Tag: Supergirl in the Multiverse

This week out begins my month-long look at the DC Super Hero Girls universe as a way to get excited for the series’ return to comics at the beginning of June with DC Super Hero Girls: High School Reunion. To start off, we’re actually going to take a look a bit earlier with Super Best Friends Forever. Super Best Friends Forever was a (very) short lived DC Nation series of shorts from 2012 centering around Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wonder Girl and their friendship. Throughout the 5 shorts we get to see the trio of besties get into some shenanigans but we don’t get too much in the way of development past them being girl best friends. The reason I’m including and starting out with Super Best Friends Forever is because both this show and the later Super Hero Girls were both created by Lauren Faust, and both have a similar style of goofy storytelling with teen girl heroes. SBFF is generally considered a predecessor to the Super Hero Girls line of products which is why I have designated it as 96.0, 96 is the designation for DC Super Hero Girls as a whole (including both versions of the show) so I figured why not also list SBFF along with it.

Supergirl herself is never named as such but it does seem like this is the Kara Zor-El version of the character. Most of her character exploration is done through the episode Grounded where we see Supergirl being grounded by Superman for some unshown reason and she has been grounded from super-heroing and forced to stay on the Kent farm. This information does point towards this version of Supergirl being related to Superman both because of her being on the Kent farm as well as taking his grounding seriously. Potentially, since it is the Kents and not the Danvers that she’s staying with could point to this Supergirl having been adopted by the Kents, but it’s not clearly stated. One of the main stylistic choices done in this series was giving the SBFF all different body types and with that we get Supergirl being a bit bigger and I personally think it’s a great look. Otherwise the costume is fairly standard with the blue shirt and red skirt, but her sleeves are at the 3/4 length which I’m a big fan of.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. The Super Best Friends Forever Supergirl is standing in the foreground and flexing her arm. Behind her you can see the night sky and a city skyline. A spotlight shines down on her from the top right. The top right also features a motif of Supergirl’s S symbol with a 96.0 on it.

Archie comics have a long history of being slice-of-life teen drama or comedy stories featuring a handful of students that are all enrolled at Riverdale High. However, there are some stories with the Archie characters that see them taking up heroic identities and becoming superheroes. Pureheart the Powerful (the heroic form of Archie Andrews) first shows up in Life with Archie #42, and he would later be joined by his friends Jughead (under the name Captain Hero) and Betty Cooper as Superteen. These heroes would have various adventures throughout the years and in 1996 a miniseries called Archie’s Super Teens would come out and 2019 would have a 2 part series called Archie’s Superteens vs Crusaders which pitted the Riverdale heroes up against the Crusaders which were the more traditional comic book heroes that also made their starts in Archie comics. As far as my research could come up with, this universe does not have a specific designation, so I used the prefix “A” for Archie Comics (just in case I find any other Supergirls from Archie Comics) and the 42 coming from Pureheart’s first appearance in Life with Archie #42.

Superteen (Sometimes Super Teen) first appears in Archie’s Girl’s Betty and Veronica #118. In this story Betty Cooper is shown reminiscing about what it would be like if she had super-powers and what she would use them for (mostly keeping Archie away from Veronica it seems). The next issue #119 would take a slightly different approach, with Mr. Weatherbee getting assaulted by a monster called the Consumer who is terrorizing the school. The teacher calls for Superteen to come save the day and we see Betty Cooper jump into action as the Superteen! It does end up being Jughead saving the day however by beating the fiend at an eating contest. Superteen, much like Supergirl, has had many different costumes since her debut and for the most part I’ve stayed true to her earliest appearances (red and blue with short sleeves) however I have added the cape that she didn’t have at first and also used the heart shaped logo as opposed to the shied logo she has at first.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Superteen is in the foreground leaping slightly with her fist raised in front of Riverdale High School. The clock on Riverdale High is reading the time of 1:18. The top right corner has a motif of Superteen’s symbol with “A42” on top of it.

Originally appearing in Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #91 in the aptly named imaginary universe of Earth-91 was Superlass, Lisa Lane. The imaginary story told in this issue sees Lois Lane blinded while trying to save Superman from a ray-gun. This of course makes Superman feel pity for the intrepid reporter as he immediately asks her to marry him. The pair settle down into a custom super-built beach home and have a daughter named Lisa who almost immediately shows signs of super-powers she received from her father. Unfortunately the universe is not filled with happy endings as Superman is caught in a Kryptonite infused explosion and presumed dead. Lois never loses her love for the man of steel and visits his grave on a weekly basis, one of these visits is where we encounter Superlass for the first time.

Superlass is a teen-aged super-heroine who seems to have all the same powers as any other Kryptonian under a yellow sun. It is possible, since she is only half-Kryptonan, that she doesn’t have the full power levels as a pure-blooded Kryptonian but this is not relevant to the story. Her costume bears similarities to Supergirl’s costume of the time but her belt has a slightly different design with vertical lines as opposed to a circular buckle. Most strikingly though, Superlass has the same black hair as her mother, and while her eye color isn’t explicitly shown in Lois Lane issue 91, I do like the idea of her having the same purple eyes as her mother (although Lois having purple eyes is only a very modern interpretation). Supergirl (presumably Linda “Kara Zor-El” Danvers) is also mentioned in this story as an active hero, which is why Lisa uses the name Superlass instead. Throughout the story of Lois Lane #91, Lisa helps some aliens which give her a device to cure her mother’s blindness. Oh also there’s a hideous monster man who is in love with Lois and it’s revealed that that monster man was Superman who was horribly disfigured after the K-bomb. Lois, after having her vision restored, is disgusted by the monstrous man and her disgust leaves Superman to flee the planet.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Superlass is joyously floating in the sky. Behind the teen-aged hero is a view of the ocean and a beach house. There are 3 palm trees scattered about the beach and the sun is shining in from the top right. The top right corner also has a motif of Superlass’s S symbol with a 91 on top of it.

Much like the previous Earth-43, Earth-63 is a universe where vampires are real. On Earth-63, which is told through the Elseworlds titles under the DC vs. Vampires umbrella, the queen of the vampires Mary Seward has recently been killed which pushes the vampires into turmoil as they search for a new leader. This void is filled by a member of the superheroic community and instead of maintaining the balance that humanity and vampires had, a war is started. The new vampire community seeks to block out the sun and take the world back from humans and become the dominant race.

The universe has been told through 3 main miniseries and a few tie ins. Supergirl comes in about halfway through DC vs. Vampires (the first series) with a 1-panel cameo in issue 6 before becoming a major player on the side of the humans against the vampiric threat. Supergirl is referred to as the last hope for humanity after Superman got turned very early on in the series. Most of the back half of the first series shows Kara working with the rest of the remaining human heroes to get the sun back and overthrow the new vampire leader. As you can tell by the multiple series that exist in this universe, this is not the end of the story. Supergirl will continue on for the remaining tales told in the universe without ever getting turned and would, at the end of the final issue of DC vs. Vampires: World War V, eliminate most of the remaining vampires.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Supergirl is stood in the center of the artwork with a growing horde of vampires surrounding her. Supergirl is blasting a large heat vision burst off the lefthand side of the page. The top right has a motif of Supergirl’s S symbol with a 63 on top of it.

Earth-57 marks an interesting point in this series because it is the first time we’ve actively skipped a number. Season 1 of Supergirl in the Multiverse covered Earths 0-51 without any skips and January this year featured Earths 52-55. While I did skip around in February and March, those were for specific theming reasons, now that we’re back to going in order (sort of) we come to find that there is not currently a universe in the DC Multiverse with a designation of 56, but we do get an Earth-57. In short, it’s the universe where Superman marries Lois and Lana and Jimmy Olsen marries Supergirl, but it does get a tad more complicated than that.

The universe exists as told in both Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #57 (1961) and Superman’s Girlfriends #57 (1965). The Lois Lane story is the later entry but I want to cover it first for reasons we’ll get into later. Lois Lane #57 takes place on Earth-1 (Pre-Crisis Earth-1), and Lois and Lana are babysitting a Super-Tot who they think is their Superman that has been de-aged. They both hypnotize him (as a toddler) in hopes that he’ll marry them once he reverts to his old self. This does happen, but not the way they expected, the Super-tot they were sitting was actually the de-aged Superman of Earth-57 (it wasn’t named as such at the time, but is the canon designation) and through a viewer in the Fortress Lois and Lana witness Superman of Earth-57 marrying both Lois and Lana and Superman of Earth-1 mentioning that on that universe, bigamy (having 2 wives) is legal.

Jimmy Olsen #57 has a slightly less convoluted plot but there are still some hoops to jump through. Jimmy visits Midvale orphanage to write a story (Linda is there although she has been adopted by the Danvers but this isn’t really relevant). Jimmy unknowingly exposes Linda to red-k which makes her forget that she has superpowers (which k still trying to figure out why she never realized she was wearing a wig) and then the pair fall madly in love and get married. Linda eventually remembers that she has super powers and comes up with a plan to slowly reveal to Jimmy her existence as Supergirl (this story takes place just before her existence is revealed to the world) and then also Linda, as Supergirl, would also confess her love to Jimmy. This puts Jimmy in a pickle and also points to the fact that these 2 Earth-57s cannot exist together at once. Jimmy is conflicted because he is stuck between his wife Linda, and Supergirl who is also confessing her love to him. The conflict being that Jimmy can’t be married to both Supergirl and Linda (which wouldn’t be the case if this universe had legalized bigamy. Of course there is a happy ending with Linda revealing to Jimmy that she’s Supergirl and they continue on with their happy married life.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Supergirl is shown bridal carrying Jimmy Olsen with a wedding finger on her hand. Jimmy is holding a camera and the pair are floating in the air. The background shows a skyline including the Daily Planet and the midground has a suburban home with a mailbox that reads “THE OLSENS”. The top right corner has a motif of Supergirl’s symbol with a 57 on top of it.